Article excerpt

In this month's One on One, we interviewed Adam Pertman from the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. In July, CWLA announced a partnership with the Institute. The partnership will help further the missions of both organizations by expanding work in the field of adoption and, ultimately, improving the lives of children and families.

What is the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute's mission?

The Institute is the leading research, policy, and education organization in the field. Our operating vision is that adoption and foster care work better when they are based on real knowledge and research. In a sense, we are an activist think tank that develops and disseminates knowledge, and then works to put it into practice. We take that extra step of trying to do the right thing by getting information to professionals and policymakers and advocating for its use. We work to change law, policy, and practice so they serve everyone in our community better.

Why was a partnership formed between the Adoption Institute and CWLA?

The partnership furthers the missions of both organizations. For the Institute, it provides access to more people who can use our work, who can inform it, and who can help us figure out what best serves children and families. I see this as a real growth opportunity in terms of the scope of our work and, most important, its impact. For CWLA, this is an opportunity to engage its members in tangible ways - which helps them further their mission - and to serve those members, because you can simply do a better job if you have better information on best practices, training materials, and the like.

How will this partnership benefit children and families?

That's the bottom line, isn't it? I think it will do that both directly and indirectly. Indirectly, when you change a system, you might not be able to identify the kid to whom you give a permanent home, but if you really improve that system, you end up giving 1,000 kids homes. So systems change is critical. It's not just about maintaining families and forming families, but it's also about making sure that those children and families have good lives. When we have better practices, better laws, and better policies, in a broad sense we improve the prospects for all children and their families to have better resources, better parenting, and training on how to deal with special needs - we simply know how to do it better, and that benefits everyone. …

Making Babies, Making Families: What Matters Most in an Age of ReproductiveTechnologies, Surrogacy, Adoption, and Same Sex and Unwed ParentsFerguson, Susan J..
Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 64, No. 1, February 2002

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Peer-reviewed publications on Questia are publications containing articles which were subject to evaluation for accuracy and substance by professional peers of the article's author(s).

How Illinois Is Moving Kids out of Foster-Care Limbo ; the State's Child-Welfare System, Long Maligned, Has Become a Model for Reform by Encouraging AdoptionSavoye, Craig.
The Christian Science Monitor, December 5, 2000